The Ara Entertainment PR employee in charge of writing the press release found it difficult to hide how panicked he was.
He felt like he had to edit the titles he picked, like ‘M2M’s Chae Eun Ho’s successful solo debut, L.U.V., 1st place craze…’
The time of Chae Eun Ho’s sound file release was 6 pm. However, the music chart ranking changes at midnight.
The planning strategy team and album production team, whose job it is to analyze the performance after music is released, were also panicking.
They had definitely checked yesterday that Chae Eun Ho’s ‘L.U.V.’ was first place on the music chart.
Of course, even if it starts off in first place, it can’t continue to stay in first place. However, Young Women’s song, which had been in second place, had already been on the music chart for 3 weeks. It stayed third/fourth place for a few days and then went back up as high as second place.
Considering they were rookies, they stayed in the top of the chart for a long time, so certainly there was nowhere to go but down now.
Also, among the songs that were being released for the time being, no one was as recognizable as Chae Eun Ho. There could be a dark horse, like a drama OST, but there weren’t any dramas that are particularly influential enough to pull that off.
Although it was released earlier on Director Seo Joong Won’s orders, they had taken all that into account when deciding the release time.
They had even been promised exposure through Pineapple Music, which boasts the number 1 market share in the music chart market.
In addition to appearing on the main screen, Chae Eun Ho’s song continued to appear in the recommendations, inducing users to click.
M2M’s fandom was also now firmly established as the second biggest fandom after KK’s.
There should be no situation that caused Chae Eun Ho’s song to fall behind.
The person who was feeling the most gloomy over the real-time music chart was the manager of the Strategic Planning Team, Jin Guk Sun. It wasn’t just that he was afraid of Director Seo Joong Won’s anger.
Manager Jin Guk Sun was in the same boat as Director Seo Joong Won. That’s how he was able to land the Strategic Planning Team Manager job, a core position among Ara Entertainment executives.
1 Please take a listen, Bunker21
2 L.U.V, Chae Eun Ho
3 Our Time, Young Women
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68 Like Chocolate, Valentine
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Valentine was also doing incredibly well for rookies. Chae Eun Ho, of course, had a successful solo debut.
However, you could definitely see that Ara Entertainment’s reputation was starting to crack. It meant that there would soon be cracks in Director Seo Joon Won’s reputation too.
It was understandable that people were starting to say, ‘it’s not what it used to be’.
They only had this kind of success thanks to Pineapple Music intentionally pushing Ara Entertainment’s songs. On BN Music and Jam Music, Chae Eun Ho was 3rd and Valentine was 80th. Their market share was smaller than Pineapple Music, but they were still large music sites.
If they had suddenly lost to a song released by a major singer, they at least would have set up a competition, but the singer Chae Eun Ho lost to was a group they hadn’t heard of, ‘Bunker 21’.
There was no way it wasn’t a huge hit to his pride.
If this kept up, there would be a limit to their strategy of using Chae Eun Ho to bring Valentine up. They had to prioritize getting Chae Eun Ho to first place.
“Who the heck is this? How can they suddenly be first place? They must have manipulated the chart.”
As the influence of music sites became stronger, there were a few agencies that started using shady methods of ‘chart manipulation’. Once they raise their rankings, a lot of people inevitably listen to the song so it’s easy to maintain their ranking. It was a strategy that agencies used to do whatever they could to get their own singers known.
Manager Jin Guk Sun angrily talking to himself made the Strategic Planning office go dead silent.
However, it was true that, listening as a team member, manager Jin Guk Sun’s anger was funny. Ara Entertainment didn’t have a chart manipulation scandal, but they strategically partnered with Pineapple Music to openly push Ara Entertainment’s songs.
It was a ‘strategic alliance’ to put it nicely. It was a publicly known fact to all the members of the Strategic Planning Team that there were secret kickbacks with Pineapple Music.
“There was a ballet performance to this song on the program Dancing Dancing yesterday…Based on that, we think it’s probably a singer TBN is raising. Seeing as the distributor is also BN music, which is run by TBN…”
It was as the team member explained.
‘Please take a listen’ by Bunker21 became known through TBN’s popular program ‘Dancing Dancing’ last night.
It was a special performance that the ballerinas put together with a song that wasn’t a classic as the background music.
‘Please take a listen’, which had an acoustic band doing the accompaniment, was a song with a cheerful melody and a bittersweet emotion.
It was a song that you’ll want to keep listening to after listening to it once, and when you’re listening to it it makes you want to go out on a walk.
The comfortable melody and stylized music color softly wrapped around the ear. The music color was familiar like you have heard it somewhere before, yet it had a unique singing style, giving it character.
Chae Eun Ho’s ‘L.U.V.’ was a colorful dance song that becomes perfect when you add the fun of watching it. Bunker21’s ‘Please take a listen’ was a song that is optimized for listening.
It was also a song that will be playing on the streets or cafes for a long time to come.
Of course you can’t immediately become first place just because it’s a good song.
You also need enough recognition to get people to click. However, this new singer that they had never seen or heard of before debuted through a popular program called ‘Dancing Dancing’.
Right when people were frantically searching what the song from ‘Dancing Dancing’ was just now, TBN released the song.
“What about the agency…?”
“All that’s written is that it’s the same distributor…Could it be that BN Music produced their own singer?”
“If they had put in that much work we would have known,”
Manager Jin Guk Sun replied as he frowned.
He checked the BN music site.
Sound files were released on all sites, but they each had a different site in charge of distribution.
Just as Pineapple Music put songs from Ara Entertainment, who distributed through them, on the recommended list, BN Music, of course, was also pushing the songs for ‘Bunker21’, who distributed through them.
Just in case, Manager Jin Guk Sun checked the Jam Music section.
“Look into the agency thoroughly. See if they did chart manipulation.”
“Yes sir. Understood.”
Actually, within Ara Entertainment’s Album Production Team, people were already of the opinion that “Bunker21’s song is so good, there’s nothing we can do”.
Problems with their album production process, like ‘Ara needs to get even more songs too. If we use a conservative strategy of working mainly with existing composers, our songs may continue to fall short,’ were being pointed out.
They were things they had been saying ever since M2M lost to KK.
The Album Production Team’s thinking was that PR strategy was important too, but that truthfully what was the most basic was ‘the song itself’.
However, the Strategic Planning Team’s influence was much stronger than the Album Production Team’s, so from the Strategic Planning Team’s perspective, they saw strategy as just as important as the song. After several successes, they sometimes even arrogantly thought that you could compensate for anything with strategy.
Therefore, it was hard for Manager Jin Guk Sun to admit the fact that they lost to a singer that they didn’t know the name or face of.
At that moment, Manager Jin Guk Sun’s phone rang.
For a moment, he thought it might be Director Seo Joong Won and he became on edge, but he quickly saw that it was an external call.
He waved the team members away with his hand and answered the phone.
“Hello, this is Ara Entertainment Strategic Planning Team’s Jin Guk Sun.”
-Ah, sir! Hello. Pineapple Music…
The person calling was the person in charge of distribution contracts at Pineapple Music.
He almost never got a call from the person in charge of contractors, who wasn’t even the person in charge of distribution, so a question mark popped up in Manager Jin Guk Sun’s head.
And Manager Jin Guk’s expression became gradually darker.
“Do you think that makes sense?!”
Eventually, Manager Jin Guk Sun raised his voice. The Strategic Planning Team members, who were holding their breath, were now used to bating their breath.
Manager Jin Guck Sun promptly cleared his voice and continued calmly,
“Ok. It sounds like something we’ll need to discuss privately. Yes. I’ll report it first, and…Yes. I understand your position…”
***
“Come in.”
Knock knock, Director Seo Joong Won answered the sound of knocking on the door.
The vibe in Director Seo Joong Won’s office was, of course, not good.
Director Seo Joong Won was going to call on Manager Jin Guk Sun anyways, but Manager Jin Guk Sun contacted him first asking if he could come to the office.
“Yes. What’s…”
“I’m sorry, Director. I have no excuse.”
As soon as he sat down, Manager Jik Guk Sun lowered his head in front of Director Seo Joong Won.
However, Director Seo Joong Won shook his head.
It was obvious that the situation was not good. However, Director Seo Joong Won knew that if he pushed Manager Jin Guk Sun, who was one of his people, to the edge in this current situation, it would only leave himself scrambling.
Anyways, he needed someone to dirty their hands for him. Even Chae Eun Ho’s album had gone sideways. He needed a loyal dog who would work even harder.
“No. It’s fine. You tried your best. You couldn’t have controlled these variables…”
“Thank you…for seeing it that way.”
Despite Director Seo Joong Won’s unexpected words of consolation, Manager Jin Guk Sun’s expression was still dark. Director Seo Joong Won even brought up the countermeasure he had come up with.
“Those punks Bunker 21 or whatever are a different genre than Eun Ho anyways…Since we’re in this situation anyways, let’s do some media manipulation. There’s a lot of rookies, and…get Young Women and Valentine associated with it.”
It was a method Manager Jin Guk Sun had come up with too, so he nodded his head.
“Also, knock down those KK punks.”
“Sorry?”
“Spin it as ‘even if KK comes back, will they be as they used to be?’…that times have changed now. You understand what I’m saying, right?”
“Ah…But if we do that, we’ll attract too many attention seekers.”
“Do at least that for now. We have to get people to click on things related to Chae Eun Ho and Valentine, right? Huh? First off, we need to immediately increase our score.”
Disregarding their long-term image, this was a method that only no-name agencies used.
One thing was clear: he was pretending to be ok, but Director Seo Joong Won, who had the board meeting coming up soon, was burning up inside. Manager Jin Guk Sun replied, not questioning it anymore,
“Yes, understood. I’ll let the PR Team know and have it taken care of quickly.”
“Ok.”
“But…the thing I had to report to you…”
“What is it?”
“I received a call from Pineapple Music. They want to increase their distribution fee…”
“What?!”
“They said they plan to increase simultaneously starting next month.”
“They already take half of our music revenue anyways! Those shameless robbers! If they raise it for everyone, do they think the others will take it sitting down? Huh?”
Director Seo Joong Won huffed.
“I think there’s nothing we can do about it…we have to get it distributed, and…and not only Pineapple but BN and Jam also raised their prices too. I think they’re colluding.”
If the fee was increased, the revenue that came back to the agency would inevitably decrease. It was obviously bad news, especially when the vibe already wasn’t good.
At that moment, Director Seo Joong Won’s secretary opened the Director’s Office door wide open and entered.
“What is it??!!!”
Director Seo Joong Won shouted in a raw voice. He looked like he would pick up the coffee cup in front of him and throw it at any moment. The secretary replied as he flinched,
“Director. Both of you…I think you should see this now. It’s an article that was just posted…It’s a mess.”
The secretary held out the tablet he was holding.
There was an article pulled up on the secretary’s tablet. Former M2M member Seo Jun. In other words, it was an article about Seo Kang Jun’s return.
Next chapter: An article about Seo Jun returning that won’t make us, the readers, mad???